Prosecutors Lug Out The Goods: Ganim Jury Shown Pricey Shirts, Wines

EDMUND H. MAHONYThe Hartford Courant

Prosecutors lugged three cases of French wine into court and put a Chinese tailor on the witness stand Tuesday in their continuing effort to convince jurors that Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim's insatiable appetite for the finer things in life drove him to corruption.

Even if it was for only two hours late in the day, talk of $130 custom-tailored shirts from Hong Kong and pricey bottles of wine seemed to revivify jurors. For a week, they had been whipsawed by angry questions and sometimes contradictory answers about more than $1 million in kickbacks and bribes the government says Ganim, 43, solicited during five terms as mayor.

Leonard Grimaldi -- the mayor's former friend, campaign manager and self-described bagman -- had spent nearly five days testifying that he and Ganim fund-raiser Paul Pinto, 28, extorted the money from would-be city contractors on Ganim's orders. During a lengthy cross-examination, the mayor's lawyers picked at inconsistencies in Grimaldi's testimony in an attempt to portray him as a liar who is cooperating with the government to save his own skin.

When Grimaldi, 44, finished his sometimes arcane testimony on the finer points of shaking down companies that wanted contracts to cap landfills or run sewer plants, the jury got some tangible evidence of alleged corruption: two blue men's shirts, said to be sewn by Hong Kong tailors, a $105 necktie, and three cases of wine, bottles of which are said to be valued at between $100 and $200 each.

``No spilling,'' U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton warned, as a pair of FBI agents rolled three cases into court on a handcart. ``Count the bottles.''

Bridgeport Police Det. Orlando J. Perez, who was a mayoral driver and bodyguard from about 1996 to 2000, described for jurors where the wine came from. On a Saturday in autumn 1998, he said, Ganim wanted a ride for himself and Bridgeport Democratic power broker Mario Testo. Their destination: Amity Wine & Spirit Co. in New Haven. Pinto and Grimaldi were already at the store, Perez said.

Collectively, the group picked out six cases of wine. As the party approached a cash register, Perez said, the store owner said, ``If you guys put it all on one bill, I'll give you a discount.'' Perez said Grimaldi paid. The bill was $7,316.82, according to a canceled check introduced into evidence last week.

Perez's testimony about buying the wine differed in nuance from Grimaldi's. Last week Grimaldi said he picked up the bill because he usually paid for whatever the mayor wanted. He said he and Pinto were afraid Ganim could be vindictive and deny city contracts to their clients if his huge appetite for bribes and expensive gifts wasn't satisfied. Grimaldi also disagreed with Perez about whether Testo participated in the wine-buying excursion.

After lunch at a nearby restaurant, Perez testified, the party returned to Bridgeport in separate cars. He said the springs on Grimaldi's silver BMW sagged under the weight of the two cases he carried. On the way to Ganim's home in a city-owned Lincoln, Perez said, the mayor asked him to store the other four cases at his house. Perez put it in his basement and said he didn't find the request odd.

``He mentioned to me that he didn't want his wife to know how much he spent on wine,'' Perez said. ``To me, it was reasonable. I wouldn't want my wife to know.''

About a month after the purchase, Perez said, Ganim asked him to deliver a half-case each of Chateau Lafite Rothschild '93, Far Niente '95 and Grand Vin de Chateau Latour '93 to the mayor's residence.

Perez also differed slightly from Grimaldi in his account of an expensive dinner he shared with Pinto, Grimaldi and Ganim at a Manhattan restaurant. Grimaldi had testified that he paid the bill because he always paid for Ganim.

Perez said he remembers Ganim reaching for his wallet when the check came, then putting it back when Pinto and Grimaldi volunteered to pay. But, Perez said, just the thought of Ganim paying for a dinner, during which Pinto dined on a $180 Japanese steak, provoked laughter around the table.

Thomas Yu, manager of the high-end men's shirt and accessory store Ascot Chang on W. 57th St. in Manhattan, preceded Perez and described how Ganim, Grimaldi and Pinto were repeat customers in the late 1990s. Yu said customers are hand-measured for shirts, which are sewn in Hong Kong. He said the store's computerized billing records show that Grimaldi and Pinto bought Ganim hundreds of dollars of custom dress shirts, some with the mayoral monogram.

Grimaldi was a witness for about three and a half hours Tuesday, during which defense lawyer Richard T. Meehan Jr. tried to paint him as a corrupt political fixer who is trying to drag Ganim down with him. ``You betrayed every client you ever had,'' Meehan asked, ``didn't you?''

``Because of my agreement with Joe Ganim,'' Grimaldi replied.

Meehan demanded to know whether Grimaldi started to search for ways to avoid prosecution after it became clear that he and Pinto were under investigation by the FBI.

``I thought about some scenarios,'' Grimaldi conceded, ``yes.''

Meehan then asked, ``And one of them was to give them Joe Ganim, wasn't it?''